Greek Values: Vietnam War

Vietnam Wars Value

The Vietnam War was preceded by the first Indochina war, in which it freed from French rule and the Indochina colony. It then divided into Northern and Southern Vietnam. The South’s most important allies were China and Russia while the North’s were the United States. This means that in a greater context, Vietnam was caught inside the Cold War. The Northerners influencespread into Southern Vietnam due to the huge opposition gained by the implementation of the presidents repressive policies.
The communist party of Vietnam wanted to reunite as one country by overthrowing Diem, and this they realized would be possible with the use of armed forces. This is why in 1960 the National Liberation Front was created independently from the communist party, as a means ofuniting all Diems opposition in the south. The creation of the NLF caused US intervention to increase on military equipment, but since this just led to more NLF victories in the Southern villages, they prepared their own counterattack. Diem’s government sought to separate villagers in a kind of concentration camps, this way eliminating the NLF main source of support. This had exactly the oppositeeffect, since the plan created more disgust towards his government and more supporters for the NLF. By 1963 Diems government hit its weakest point when attacked monks under the accusations of harboring communist opposition who burned themselves in protest. The pictures went around the world and sparked uncontrollable upheaval in the South, for which Kennedy (current US president) supported a militarycoup that ended in the death of Diem. Under Johnson’s presidency in 1964, the excuse of the bombing of two ships in the Gulf of Tonkin was used to convince the congress to pass a resolution that expanded his power in war.
By 1965, Under Johnsons government the first US combat troops entered Vietnam and target bombing increased. The number of deaths and effects of war strengthened anti warsentiments, present in protest all around the United States. In 1968, the communist party and the NFL attacked important southern cities, as a way of pressuring the US into agreements for appeasement. These weren’t put into effect, since Nixon won presidency and he declared to have his own secret plan to end war. It consisted in reducing the number of us troops in Vietnam while incrementing air raidsand raising its dependency on Vietnamese troops. This cover up plan resulted in more critiques, topped by the 1972 bombings of Northern Vietnam, and consequently forced Nixon to reconsider negotiations rejected earlier that year by the Southern Vietnam government. The 1973 peace accords ended conflict between US and northern Vietnam, but the war continued up to 1975, when communist forces took overthe South and imposed its government for the entire Vietnam.
Arete and Xenia are qualities that ancient Greek civilization, and other western ones, used to praise and over which the stability and respectability of these were balanced. Both qualities, in their purest forms, are ones which require cool and intelligent minds, with a clear goal and consideration both of their own wellbeing as of itsopponents. It’s the ability to act consciously, measuring the power to create or destroy. The Vietnam wars extensiveness was perpetrated by the frequency in which opposing sides fell in the trap of low forms of Arete and Xenia, sacrificing their efficiency and purpose.
Arete describes the struggle to excellence, possible through the exploitation of the individuals virtues and potential, fromwhich a sense of pride is born. In other words it is the path to godliness, through varying doses of courage, strength and intelligence. Arete in its godly form can’t be earned since it is given freely and comes out of the blue to whom the god desires. A kind of divine intuition is granted, or an invincibility also known as berserk. A step lower leads to a balanced and more human kind of Arete,...